Much of the western world values the concept of individual rights. These rights vary from culture to culture, and by very definition, from person to person, and appear mainly in individualist societies. In considering the self, the most intimate legal relation would be what is codified as 'sui juris', or what laws have a purposed place so far as they are derived of the self.

In such cultures, it is generally considered that each and every individual has the following rights:

group rights – provide protection for groups against ethnic genocide, and self-determination (as a group) and the ownership by countries of their national territories and resources; may overlap with the bodily and property rights, and Social equality rights, listed above